Rush’s Morning Update: Fair Play
August 18, 2010

Jim Callaghan was, until recently, a six-figure employee of the powerful United Federation of Teachers union, the UFT. For over ten years, he worked with the union’s newsletter and was also a speechwriter for union bosses. Like a dozen other writers the union employs, Mr. Callaghan toiled in a non-union job.

After a colleague was fired last year, without cause, Jim Callaghan decided to organize so he and his fellow UFT writers could collectively bargain with the UFT. But two months after telling the UFT president he was organizing non-union workers to have the same rights unionized teachers have, Callaghan was abruptly fired. Dumped. Sacked. Callaghan says that before he was fired, the union president told him he had the power to “fire whoever he wanted to,” andhe didn’t want his writers to have the same protections thathis union members have.

Callaghan says the union gave him “no reason, no letter, no cause at all.” After he was fired, the union-busting tactics continued:six uniformed cops removed him from his office because he wasn’t leaving fast enough.

The 63-year-old Callaghan will file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, and he says he’s going tosue not just for union-busting, but for age discrimination.